Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 12th, 2020

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Sorry, Madam Chair, I just raised my hand.

This would continue from page 44, line 26 to page 46. One of the things we heard from Ms. de Clercy's testimony, and it's a pretty compelling quote, is that “One of the challenges in the move to virtual assembly is to ensure that e-deliberation is more than just an episodic, half-hearted online opinion poll.” I thought that was a pretty compelling quote that I'd like to see inserted somewhere in that section between lines 26 on page 44 and line 6 on page 46.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. I would hope that stands for everything, even our regular in-person debates in the House as well.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

That's why I thought it was compelling and that it needed to be inserted in this report, because it was probably one of the lines of the studies that we heard.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. Everyone is okay with that section.

I had to hold back my opinions on some of the debate I've heard in person at times in the House. Anyway, at times it's very enlightening and at other times, not so much.

Okay. “Voting” is good.

We're on to “Question Period”.

Ms. Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

In the second paragraph at line 20—on the good copy, not the tracked changes one—“in person” is in that line. It's line 20 on page 46. It should have a hyphen between “in” and “person”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Andre said that he would add that in.

Are there any other comments on “Question Period”? It's a small section.

The Bloc is good. The Liberals are okay.

Seeing as there are no hands raised, I'll move on to “B. Future work for the Committee on developing of procedures and practices”.

Mr. Brassard.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Thank you.

With regard to page 47, there is again another compelling line that I thought Dr. de Clercy came up with that I think needs to be included, and that is her evidence about avoiding a period of crisis becoming an accidental gateway to a permanent method of virtual assembly. Again, I think it speaks to the fact that we're looking at this in the context of an emergency trigger or an emergency situation, where we would move to a virtual assembly. I thought that this line was very compelling as well, so if we could include her comments somewhere in this section, I would appreciate that as well, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Is everyone good with that? Are there any other additions to this section, “Future work for the Committee”?

Seeing as there are no hands up, we will move on to the next section.

Sorry. We're at the end, so we have half an hour to go through the recommendations.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Chair, it's taken us two and a half hours to get to this point. I think we're at a point right now where we need to start talking about what Mr. Richards brought up at the beginning of our meeting. I'm hopeful, but I don't see our getting through the recommendations within the time allotted to us, which is now 28 minutes.

Can we talk about the dissenting report, translation and the ability to table the report by Friday? I think it's an important time to have this conversation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

That's not a bad idea, but I think we can make it quick. From what you have submitted so far, it looks like there are two recommendations from the Conservatives, 15 or more from the Liberals, and a similar number from the NDP and the Bloc as well.

A lot of the recommendations—I've been looking through them and the different sections—are lining up. Some need some discussion, I'm sure. What I'm trying to say is that maybe I can pose the question to the different parties as to whether you envision many changes to be made to this recommendations portion, because if you don't envision hardly any changes or you're just amalgamating certain recommendations, then essentially this version of the report doesn't change at all, even if we do go into having to sit for one or two additional hours tomorrow. I don't see how it really changes the essence of this report or the recommendations that the parties have put forward.

Is there any discussion on that?

Mr. Richards, you have a discussion point on that.

Ms. Blaney, it seems like you might want to say something. Do you envision perhaps adding more recommendations or that the report will look a lot different between today and tomorrow?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

From what I understand, from what Mr. Richards and now what Mr. Brassard is saying, it's really about our ability to do our reports and the timeline for that, so I do feel that needs to be answered today, because it will have a bearing.

There are some recommendations that I have some serious concerns about. Until I know the debate and the discussion that happens in this committee, it's hard to say for me what the final report, for me, will look like.

It's a timeline issue and it's an important one also for my team.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you for that.

We'll go to Mr. Richards, and then Madame Normandin.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

My thoughts are very similar to Ms. Blaney's on this topic. It's unrealistic to imagine that in the next 25 minutes we will go through this volume of recommendations. There is certainly going to be some discussion, and without a doubt, there will be some suggestion of changes. What that will look like we won't know until we get into the discussion, but I cannot imagine that we would not require a meeting tomorrow.

Therefore, like Ms. Blaney, I feel that until we see what those discussions look like and see where things land in the end, it is very hard to settle on a final version of a draft report. It's entirely unrealistic to expect the opposition parties—or given the minority situation we're in, I suppose potentially the government could provide a dissenting report as well—to draft a report when we don't know what the discussions will look like, we don't know what the final recommendations will be and we won't know that until tomorrow afternoon.

I don't think it's realistic to expect us to have that in by the end of the day. Potentially, we could still be meeting at that point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I really do think there needs to be some extra time provided. Certainly at the very minimum, I would suggest possibly the end of the next day would be better.

I just really don't see how we don't provide extra time. It would be very unfair and unrealistic to expect that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay, and you've put forward a proposal.

We'll hear from Madame Normandin, and then the clerk can let us know how much leeway he thinks we have in terms of interpretation and being able to prepare the final version.

Madame Normandin.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I just want to give you a heads-up on where we stand.

If all the recommendations we've made end up in the final document, we won't need a supplementary report. However, if some of them are different from the ones in the package, I may make a supplementary report, but it won't be much.

I just wanted you to know where we stand. For us, it will mainly revolve around the translation and language rights, to ensure that everything is covered.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you for letting us know that.

Justin, how much leeway do we have in terms of being able to produce for the end of day on the 15th?

[The Clerk]

I guess there are a couple of points. On the first specific point that Mr. Richards raised with respect to the dissenting opinions and the deadline, I did check back with parliamentary publications and they indicated, for additional leeway, until Thursday, May 14, at noon, in terms of some additional time, especially seeing as the committee might need to meet tomorrow afternoon as well. That's what they came back to me with in terms of additional time to have dissenting opinions put in.

On the broader issue of the other type of production milestones that would need to fall into place in order to be able to have the report presented by Friday, in reality, the best answer I can give is that it depends how much additional material or additional work the committee ultimately chooses to make to the draft that they saw today. More work required in order to make the modifications to the draft report will obviously take more translation time, as well as additional production time from parliamentary publications.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

All right, that's the additional time provided.

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

That is still a fairly tight timeline, and I respect that we're dealing with what we're dealing with. There are other ways we could get around that as a committee. Certainly there could be an interim report provided that says we need an extra few days.

There are ways around it. However, if [Technical difficulty—Editor] in that time, what I might suggest is, could we allow the parties to have until noon on Thursday to provide their copy in at least one language and follow that by the end of the day with the [Technical difficulty—Editor] version? Otherwise, we're—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I couldn't hear the second half of what you just said.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Give parties at least until noon on Thursday to provide it in one language. Then our translated version could follow by the end of the day. That way at least whoever is working on the production would have some sense of the length and content. That would allow them to get started on that.

That would give us a bit more leeway. If you're expecting it to be translated by noon, that doesn't give us a lot of time to [Technical difficulty—Editor] the report and do that as well. Whereas if we have an extra day to provide that second language....

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Maybe we can hear from Ms. Blaney quickly before the clerk answers, because there might be something new raised.

Ms. Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I have nothing new to raise. It's just really understanding that the translation of the document is the biggest barrier for us as well.